Shut

Sea Robin Pipeline reported that the Sea Robin Processing Plant, which has seen off-and-on operations in the last month or two, was shut down again unexpectedly Wednesday but will continue to dehydrate gas during the unplanned outage. Sea Robin Pipeline said if it is notified by any downstream pipeline operator that Sea Robin gas can no longer be accepted due to the lack of processing, it will provide as much notice as possible to shippers of the need to use other delivery points. “Shippers are encouraged to call their downstream delivery point operators to see if they will be accepting gas from Sea Robin during this outage.

Local distribution companies contending with tight gas supplies, volatile pricing and sometimes the threat of hurricane-related shut-ins do well to remember the virtues of diversity — specifically, diversity of supply, transportation and pricing strategies.

Former Enron Corp. CEO Jeffrey Skilling used to have a lot of trouble keeping his mouth shut. Known for being brash, opinionated and at times foul-mouthed, he used to boast that Enron would be the world’s largest company. However, since resigning in August 2001, Skilling has been mostly silent, seen more often in the gossip pages for his public behavior than talking about the charges against him. Next week, however, he will tell his side of the story.

Local distribution companies contending with tight gas supplies, volatile pricing and sometimes the threat of hurricane-related shut-ins do well to remember the virtues of diversity — specifically, diversity of supply, transportation and pricing strategies.

With the near-term weather outlook pumping some life into the bulls’ case in Sunday’s overnight Access session and again on Monday morning, April natural gas futures on Monday ended up recording a high of $7.090 before settling at $7.007, up 36.1 cents on the day. The day’s close marked the first time since Feb. 24 that a prompt-month settled north of $7.

Sixteen natural gas processing plants in Louisiana and Texas that had a pre-hurricane flow volume of 5.45 Bcf/d remain shut down, according to information supplied by Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to a Senate panel Thursday.

As shut-ins in the Gulf of Mexico continue to carve away available natural gas supplies for the winter, people are now turning their attention to exactly what type of winter the U.S. can expect. Depending on which forecasting organization you believe, some regions could be colder or warmer than normal.

With hurricane-related shut-ins damping down nearly 7% of the Gulf of Mexico’s yearly natural gas production, liquefied natural gas (LNG) may be a “supply of last resort” for the coming winter heating season, according to an analysis by Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA). However, additional LNG imports may not be available because of global competition, the Massachusetts-based consultant reported.

While New England may have some gas delivery concerns this winter because of production shut ins in the Gulf and no growth in Sable Island production, the region may be struggling through an oversupply situation between 2008 and 2010.